The present invention relates to satellite communications in general and, in particular, to reference terminal and routing functionality onboard satellite.
Satellite communications systems often utilize “bent-pipe” architectures, wherein the satellite performs little or no processing of the data contained in a received signal. Instead, the received signal is amplified and retransmitted to earth, and the processing of the data is largely performed at ground-based terminals. This bent-pipe architecture can, however, function to limit multiplexing gains in many systems.
It may, therefore, be desirable to perform certain processing tasks on satellite in order to improve multiplexing gains, better utilize available bandwidth, or capture other operational improvements. However, it may be costly or inefficient to have all of the processing functionality typically associated with a router onboard a satellite. Thus, it may be desirable in certain instances to partition functionality to allow for multiplexing gains and other efficiencies set forth above, while having related processes performed on one or more ground terminals.